


Smoke

by schmerzerling



Series: Stone & Bone/Bong & Dong/Toke & Poke [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous Mention of Minor Character Death, Angst, Cigarettes, Drug Use, Endverse (Sort Of), M/M, Marijuana, Military, PTSD, What Is and What Should Never Be (Sort Of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 13:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3122426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schmerzerling/pseuds/schmerzerling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean, struggling to come back to the real world after six years in the military, meets Castiel when his brother drags him to a New Year's Eve party. Whether or not that's a good thing is anybody's guess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justlikedaylightsavingstime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlikedaylightsavingstime/gifts).



> This turned out very differently than I expected and might be very weird, but I rolled with it. Requester said they were a-ok with most anything! So I sure gave them...something.
> 
> Warning for vaguely Endverse AU stoner!Cas and very unhappy PTSD-addled!Dean. Watch out for explicit, self-medicating recreational drug use.
> 
> Happy New Year, justlikedaylightsavingstime. I hope you enjoy.

Dean felt like an idiot when he saw the big bowl of party poppers by the door, a little sign over them filtering through the thin haze of skunky smoke— _please put all noisemakers here before entering party city!—_ because he _knew_ it was for him. Sam told him that the party would be tame and quiet, just a low-key group of Sam’s college friends steadily drinking their way into the new year, but Sam had failed to mention that the stupid thing was gonna be tame because Sam made it that way. He can see Sam calling ahead now, knows instinctively that he did. He can just hear Sam telling a couple of rowdy twenty-somethings that they were gonna have to tone down one of the biggest party nights of the year because Sammy was bringing Dean’s pansy ass along. Like Dean was some snot-nosed, tagalong little brother who made the older kids watch the G-rated movie when some kickass action flick had just come out. Lame. So, so lame.

Though, to be fair, anyone who called their apartment “party city” probably wasn’t about to throw a very good party anyway.

“It’s for the neighbors,” Sam said immediately when he saw the sign. Behind him, Jess nodded along like the supportive girlfriend she was. “Their asshole landlord is like, this close to kicking Luke out.” Sam held up his thumb and forefinger, pinched, like it would give his story credibility. Jess emulated the motion, eyes flicking between Sam and Dean. Dean rolled his eyes.

“Yeah okay, _Mom_. If you say so.”

“Try not to be a spoilsport, Dean. It’s gonna be fun, you’ll see. Luke and Mike are both in the law school here, and they throw a good party.” Sam said it a little desperate, and Christ, he sounded a like a parent. The kind of parent that set their obstinate hermit kid up on play dates and then tried not to be upset when their brat just tore up all the other kids’ toys. Lucky for Sam, Dean wasn’t really in the sandcastle-stomping mood right now. Right now, Dean was mostly just tired. Tired and really not in the mood for Sam’s law school friends, who always seemed to want to ask Dean if he regretted his time in the service, who wanted to talk politics like Dean hadn’t _been_ politics for his six years overseas.

He glanced around the apartment as he painstakingly maneuvered in, looking for any indication that it was about to be “party city” in here, but it was just a mostly empty apartment, pretty standard from what little he understood about college life—shoddy furniture, flat screen TV with a couple dead pixels, keg in the corner, hard liquor lined up on the chipped countertops, disabled smoke alarm with one dead, unblinking eye staring them down from the ceiling. Jesus, there was even a table for _beer pong_ across the room. He felt nonexistent toes curl in his boot.

And then there were Sam’s so-called friends who always looked like douchewaffles, but that was nothing new. He still couldn’t believe he’d mostly raised a kid who hung out with dicks who wore sweater vests and coordinated tracksuits, but he had missed out on a few crucial years of Sam’s development when he’d enlisted. Sometime between ages fourteen and twenty-one, while Dean was getting shot at in Afghanistan, Sam had acquired a taste for douches. It was one of Dean’s greatest regrets. Greater, even—maybe—than getting shot at in Afghanistan. But Bobby hadn’t been able to prevent that in Sam, so maybe Sam still would’ve turned out this way even with Dean’s influence. Bobby knew what he was doing, after all. More so than Dean definitely.

“Hey Samster! Who’s your friend?” someone called from across the room, and Dean stumbled like an idiot at the mere _sound_ of _Samster_ , not-knee going all wrong, stupid leg failing to figure out what he was doing on its own. Predictably, Sam caught him in the front and Jess caught the back of his shirt. They always had him sandwiched now—even when they were on the couch watching a movie or something, the warmth of their bodies was always there, hovering near and never touching. He would have thought the lovebirds would want to sit next to each other every once in a while, but that didn’t seem to be the priority lately. Hopefully he’d finally get some peace from that tonight at least, because Sam was eyeing the keg meaningfully and eyeing Jess more meaningfully, and maybe they’d draw that midnight kiss out long and give Dean some breathing room.

“Hey, Luke. This is Dean. I brought my brother,” Sam announced pointedly, which was a big goddamn mistake on his part, because it gave him away faster than anything. Sam was always telling Dean that he didn’t talk about the things that were wrong with him—in his head or otherwise—but the sign by the door was a pretty good indication that he talked about Dean’s head, and the way that at least five people _sprang_ to their feet was a pretty good indication that he’d spouted about Dean’s _otherwise_. He supposed it wasn’t like Sam could disappear to Germany for a couple weeks to visit him in the hospital while he was deciding whether he wanted to bite it or not without _some_ questions. And anyway, people _always_ wanted to give Dean their chairs now. People saw the cane he had on him and cross-checked it with the sloppy remnants of his military buzz or something in his straight-backed bearing, and some _I’m a good person!_ switch got flipped in their heads. But people didn’t usually stand _this_ quickly unless they were yuppies who had something to prove or Sam had been running his mouth about exactly how little right leg Dean had left on him.

“Come watch New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with us, bro,” one of the guys said to a murmur of agreement.

Dean shook his head. Hatred for all things Ryan Seacrest aside, he wasn’t ready to sit yet. Once he sat down, he could tell he wasn’t getting up for a while. The furniture in here was shit, low to the ground and with no clear support to speak of, and he had a hard enough time hoisting himself out of a sturdy, high-seated kitchen chair, nevermind that broke-ass looking couch from paisley hell. Sam had installed a freakin’ bar by the toilet before Dean came to live with him for chrissakes.

Dean refused to sit, and everyone sort of awkwardly sat again, right on the edges of their seats, like they were ready to spring up again at a moments’ notice. Sam, to his credit, only spent about five more minutes trying to find a better place for him, trying to get him to sit down regardless, before he gave up on the whole thing altogether and just introduced everybody, like they didn’t all know who he was anyway.

Sam did a sweeping introduction of the room at large, spouted a whole bunch of names Dean wasn’t gonna remember, and Dean grunted at everyone right back. The hosts themselves were brothers too—big, strapping fraternal twins who wouldn’t stop tussling good-naturedly and biting each others’ heads off over little shit. It reminded him of the way that he and Sam used to act together, and it made his gut twinge. Sam used to love shoving at him, sparring with him, knocking him off his feet. But he could hardly stand to touch Dean now, and it wasn’t like Dean didn’t know _why_. It sucked anyway, though. Watching someone have what he used to.

When Sam got into a conversation with the fairer of the twins, Dean managed the slowest daring escape he ever had when limped over to the kitchen counter, getting an eyeful of the available hard liquors, leaning heavily on his cane. Rounding the corner, he found that the general skunky smell that hovered in the air and lingered in the fabrics of the whole apartment got stronger the closer he got to the kitchen. He maneuvered around a little kitchen island, sparing a glance for Sammy, and when he looked back, he found he’d encountered someone who—even more than Dean—didn’t really look like he belonged here. He had blue hair, little stretcher diddlies in his ears, black fuckin’ eyeliner that flicked up at the edge of his eyes. He was as far from preppy as anyone ever got, and he was smoking a joint about the size of Dean’s thumb. When Dean rounded the corner, he blew a big ring of smoke right toward another disabled fire alarm rebelliously.

Dean leaned on the cane and stared for second, taking in the way that the blue hair clashed with the gross green appliances and cupboards—the way it was kinda fantastic.

“You here with Mike and Luke?” the guy said, managing to sound like some kind of cheesed off teenager, even though he had to be Dean’s age at least. “You gonna bitch about my smoking, too?”

Dean breathed, “Oh, no,” eyeing the joint. “I don’t care—I.”

Kitchen-stoner’s face split in a pretty, pretty grin. The kind of grin that woulda gotten Dean kicked right out of the military for dishonorable indecency before Mr. Obama came into office. He had straight white teeth despite whatever his outward appearance and marijuana usage might’ve indicated about his oral hygiene, and Dean smiled back at him stupidly. He waggled the joint between two fingers.

“Naw, you don’t look like one of their shitty friends anyway. You want?” Dean had never smoked pot before in his life. Like his old man, he was always more of a drink-away-your-problems type of guy. The military found that more acceptable, too. So that was what he usually did. Dean didn’t really have the same teenaged irresponsibility gap to try out this type of thing, either. He went straight from taking care of his little brother to taking care of his country. No inbetween. But this guy was really pretty and getting drunk wasn’t really cutting it and Sam told him he wasn’t allowed alcohol with his pain meds and his anti-inflammatories anyway (no matter what Dean had been planning to do regardless). So what was a little THC?

Probably nothing. He hoped. They were like, a few states away from legalizing this shit anyway.

“You sure?” Dean asked with all the reluctance taking a joint from someone he’d just met at a party was due.

“Hit away, my friend. Hit away.”

The guy passed over the joint and Dean took it, sucked it down like a cigarette—something he actually had experience with.

“Good shit, right?”

Dean coughed a little and nodded. In reality, he had absolutely no clue if it was good shit or not. But it seemed like the right thing to do. He took another drag, looking over his shoulder for Sam at every little puff until he remembered that he was twenty-five fuckin’ years old and he could smoke a joint if he wanted to.

“I’m Castiel,” stoner-guy said. And wasn’t that just the perfect name for the blue-haired marijuana apparition that had appeared in his brother’s friends’ kitchen.

“Dean,” Dean said back. Castiel reached out a hand like he wanted Dean to shake, but Dean had one hand on the joint and the other on the cane, and couldn’t manage it. But it became less of a problem anyway when he realized Castiel just wanted his joint back.

He gave Dean an appraising look once he had it safely between his lips, and he very deliberately stuck out his left hand so Dean could shake properly without taking his hand off the cane. “You look awfully young for that bum leg, Dean,” Castiel said, spewing smoke down at Dean’s shit leg instead of up into the air to indicate where he was looking. As if Dean would have any confusion as to which of his legs was missing.

Dean was taken aback, didn’t take his hand. People didn’t usually come right out and say it. People put noisemakers by the door and jumped out of their chairs to let him sit down. People talked to his brother, who liked to use Dean as an excuse to get out of obligations. But asking straight-out was a no-no as far as he knew.

“And you look an awful lot like a punk-ass emo teenager to be at a party full of college yuppies,” Dean snapped defensively. A strange, loosey-goosey feeling was threading through his limbs, but it was not quite so strong that Dean was gonna spill his life story. He snatched the joint back. Castiel graciously let him take it, amused little smirk twisting his lips.

 “Touché,” Castiel said, snickering. Pot-snickering. One of those stoned-ass little giggles that Dean heard in stoner flicks. Dean wondered if he sounded like that with a little flare of panic, and he tamped down his non-existent laughter, gulping hard. “The idiot twins in there are my brothers if that explains anything,” he said. He swept his arms behind him, put his palms flat on the counter, and gracefully hoisted himself up onto the countertop to sit. Dean watched the whole thing in awe, trying to imagine moving with that kind of grace right now. He had strong arms, so maybe he could do it in theory, but everything in him had hurt for a long time, now. Stepping on an IED, nearly getting your guts blown open, tended to have that effect on you—or so he had learned. Just _thinking_ about doing something like that made him feel like his stomach was gonna pull open. “Not that they’re anywhere near as handsome as me. So I can see the confusion.”

Dean took a drag, and as he did, he studied Castiel’s face closely, noticing a stud in his eyebrow that he hadn’t seen before. He squeezed gently at his stomach like it was going to keep it together, just in case it did decide to pull open, right here in the kitchen.

“I guess they do kinda look like more ripped versions of you,” Dean said. And that wasn’t exactly fair, because this guy Castiel had runner’s legs. He clearly worked out. He just wasn’t a weightlifting meathead like his brothers. He wasn’t six-foot-whatever like Sammy, and he wasn’t military-toned and hospital-starved like Dean. Dean could understand not wanting to spend every moment of your life working out. Dean thought that maybe now that he wasn’t in the military, he was gonna grow himself a nice belly. Assuming it didn’t split open first.

He shook himself, took another long drag.

“Maybe you should slow down there, chief,” Castiel said. “I was gonna smoke maybe a third of that. I think you’ve taken out that much and then some.” Castiel checked the digital clock on the microwave. “In about five minutes.”

Dean looked at the clock himself. Had it really been five minutes? He handed the joint back and cast around for somewhere to sit that wasn’t gonna rip his belly out, because his legs were going to jelly, and the world sped up around the same time it slowed down. There wasn’t a kitchen table in this shit heap, and if Dean sank down to the floor like he wanted to, there was absolutely no way he was going to get up again.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Dean wasn’t sure how long. At least five, maybe thirty, maybe an hour, maybe five hours. Dean took in the cheap metal hardware on the green cabinet doors with a growing sense of wonderment.

“Can I ask you a question, Dean?” Castiel said seriously, all wide-eyed, staring intensity.

And here it came. Just what he’d been expecting since he walked in the door.

 _Do you support the war, Dean?_ Someone always wanted to ask, always. _I mean, you’ve seen what they do over there. Do you support it still?_

Everyone wanted Dean to be one of those dramatic war vets who threw his Purple Heart into the river or something in some gesture of solidarity. But Sam had put his Purple Heart up on the mantel at home, and it made Dean feel okay to see it there, because it at least showed him he was good at something. Even if it was just killing people who probably didn’t deserve it. The fact that Sam even had the stomach to look at it made him feel like Sam was okay with the shit he had pulled over there. Dean didn’t feel great about it, but they were things he had done, things that had happened to him, and it pissed him off that jackasses like this who were sitting at home stoned off their asses while he was in Hell got to tell Dean to chuck his Purple Heart into the fucking Potomac—

“I don’t want you to throw your Purple Heart into the Potomac,” Castiel said lightly. “I was going to ask if you wanted to fuck. But now I’m thinking I should probably ask if you have issues with paranoia when you smoke.”

Jesus, did he say that out loud?

“Yes,” Castiel said. “You did.” He was off the counter, in front of Dean’s face, smoky blue eyes a little bit too intense. Dean put a hand up to stop him getting too close, but by the time he had, Castiel was already far away, across the kitchen, filling a glass with water at the sink. The world moved like a 1980s music video, where people left a slow-motion trail of blurring after-images as they walked.

Castiel was back at his side.

“That is some really good shit,” Dean said, voice shaking. He hoped he sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

“Dean, have you ever smoked pot before?” he said carefully.

Dean said, “M’heart’s beating real fast.”

Castiel sighed like that was all the answer he needed. “You should drink this,” he said. Dean brought the glass up to his lips. “You should’ve told me.”

Dean didn’t take his lips off the glass, gulping hard, thirsty suddenly. Water dribbled down the sides of his face in thin little rivulets.

“Are you the reason Mike and Luke have a weird party popper container by the door?”

Dean didn’t say anything.

“Do you have PTSD?”

Dean blinked up at him slowly, an eon passing when he shut his eyes. When he could see again, he said, “No?” like a question.

“Goddamn,” Castiel said. “It’s been like a half hour and I’ve already ruined somebody. Unbelievable. Now, who’s Sam?”

“Brother.”

“He’s here?” Dean nodded. Castiel nodded back.

When Castiel went back to the sink, motions all fluid and loose-limbed, he stubbed out the joint between two fingers at about the same time there was a loud, loud, loud _pop_ in the other room and Dean hit the deck. Which is to say, Dean panicked, totally lost his footing, and crash-landed on the floor.

“Christ,” Castiel said somewhere above him. “Jesus. It was fucking _champagne._ It was a bottle of _champagne_. Did they just take you off the field and send you to a New Year’s party?”

“No,” Dean said stupidly. “Had to get a new leg first.”

Castiel snorted. “I’m going to give you back to your brother, cadet.”

“Aw hell,” Dean said, mouth tripping. “You can’t tell him I’ve already fucked up the whole night. He’ll wanna take me home.”

“You _should_ go home.”

“I don’t want to ruin it for him.” That was true. He put his hand on his belly, squeezed, kept it in.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

Dean looked up. “What?”

Castiel put a hand on his own stomach in demonstration, grabbing a little at the extra skin there.

Dean mimicked him slowly, patting his tummy as he said, “IED,” like it was an explanation. It was apparently enough for Cas, because he displayed some crazy hidden strength and clenched his hand tight right over Dean’s bicep, giving him the leverage he needed to struggle to his feet. Then, he waited patiently while Dean got his feet solid under him. He didn’t wait for him to get his cane, though, standing in for it instead, shoulders steady underneath Dean’s outstretched arm.

“I threw mine in the Potomac,” Castiel said. “Because I’m apparently more poetic than you.”

Dean said, “Huh?”

Castiel led them through the little living room, and Dean caught sight of his brother, the big sap, leaned up against Jess on the couch, back to him, and trusting Dean, for once, to not get in trouble. Which obviously wasn’t very smart of him, but Dean wasn’t going to let that on. Dean concentrated on looking as sober as possible. He lost sight of him when they disappeared down a hallway, and Dean hadn’t realized how relieved he would be that it was _quieter_ here.

“I threw my medal in the Potomac,” Castiel said. “Or. Well, rather, it was in one of the water traps at the Palo Alto country club golf course. But the principle was the same.”

“You were in the uh.” Dean paused, and his legs—Leg. Legs?—paused too. Castiel let him stop, holding him up in the middle of the hallway. “You were in the,” he paused for longer than was appropriate, trying to remember the name of the thing that had dominated the last six years of his life. “Military,” Dean said slowly, tongue sticking to the dry roof of his mouth.

Castiel said, “Yes, I was,” with utmost seriousness, ignoring the fact that Dean’s brain had become disconnected from his body, and he definitely sounded like it.

“What’d you—what’d you win?”

“The Distinguished Service Cross,” he said. Dean could picture that medal, had seen a few of them when he’d gotten his own award. They were cool looking. Big eagles with big wings. Would look nice against Castiel’s broad chest.

“And you threw it away?”

“Yes. Though I think my parents might have it now. I forgot quite how frequently they dredge those things for balls.” He giggled his little stoner giggle. Dean almost wanted to giggle back.

“That’s…more impressive than mine, though. They give mine to just any old anybody that gets hurt. To anyone that’s—stupid enough to step on an IED.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s easy,” Castiel murmured, quiet. “They give the Purple Heart to the deceased as well.”

Dean thought about that for a second.

“Good to know I would’ve gotten it no matter how this all turned out.”

“Mmm. My brother Gabriel got a Purple Heart. Like you.”

“Did he throw his away, too?”

Castiel started walking again, moving abruptly. Dean struggled to get his prosthetic moving again too.

 “No,” he said. “But I threw his away for him.”

That made Dean’s heart plummet, apologies hard on the edge of his tongue. But Castiel took an immediate turn into a dark bedroom that couldn’t be his. The walls were too clean, everything was much too measured and concise. Nothing looked like him. Nothing felt like his hard body against his side. It looked like somewhere a law student would sleep. Dean knew, because he saw Sammy’s room almost every day. He wasn’t clean like this guy, but he was messy in a careful sort of way.

Castiel didn’t bother to turn on the light.

“Sorry,” Dean said. “Sorry I said you were a useless.”

“A useless?”

“A useless stoner.”

“I don’t think you said that,” Castiel said. 

“I was thinkin’ it though.”

Castiel huffed out a laugh, "You wouldn't have been wrong to. Though I am not _quite_ useless. They gave me the medal for a reason."

He let Dean go, and Dean gave out an undignified _yelp_ and fell onto a firm mattress, almost no bounce to it. It was strange to settle so quickly just beneath him. “I don’t think it’s _weird_ you threw your medals in the Potomac, either. Or. The—uh. The water trap. It’s weird that I want to look at mine on the mantel every day, isn’t it?”

“A little. To me. A little,” Castiel admitted. “Now. It’s time to let the depressants work their magic, Dean,” Castiel said. “Go to sleep, and maybe you’ll be close to sober by midnight.”

That felt like a dismissal, so he expected Castiel to leave as he took measured breaths and willed his heart to slow down on the side on the bed he’d been given. But instead, Castiel sat down beside him, back to the headboard of the bed, legs crossed at the foot of it. That felt nice.

Dean was facing a glowing red clock with numbers that flipped too fast sometimes, too slow others. 9:45 to 9:58 in nothing flat, and then an eternity of 9:59. Dean took stock of what was happening in his body, and he quickly realized that the only revelation that he maybe liked about pot was that his fucking stump wasn’t bothering him. There was no phantom pain edging in beneath the place where his thigh abruptly ended. No twinge in his calf or his ankle or his toes. For the first time since it’d been removed, his leg actually felt like it was gone.

His breath juddered out of him. On second thought, maybe that was a little bit scary. But it didn’t feel so bad with the warmth up against him, the warmth that trailed down his whole left leg but ended abruptly in the middle of his thigh.

The clock turned to ten, finally. Dean said, “Quiet isn’t so quiet when you’re with someone like you.”

In his head, it sounded pretty profound, but Castiel laughed his stoner laugh, so maybe it wasn’t so much.

“Like me?” Castiel said. “How sweet.”

“No like. You know. Like. Like you. Like me.” Jesus. Dean had spent a long time not talking because he didn’t want to find the words. And now that he actually wanted to find words for this stoned asshole, they absolutely wouldn’t come. “Killed. Killed someone.”

“A soldier?” Castiel said. “It’s easier being around another soldier?”

Dean grunted an affirmative, because that was true.

“Sam _hurts_.”

Castiel was just a warm presence at his back, like Sam and Jess were, but the casual way his leg brushed up against the back of Dean’s calf made the difference. Castiel wasn’t afraid to touch him.

“You’re a terrible stoner, Dean. We’ve gotta find you a better coping mechanism. Pot obviously worked for me when I first got back, but it doesn’t work for everyone.” Dean felt a hand on his arm where his own hand was clenching at his stomach without his permission. Castiel didn’t try to move him, but he did squeeze around Dean’s elbow until his hand loosened, until it didn’t seem so much like Dean needed to dig out pieces of shrapnel through the top of his skin. “But I think I like being around you too.”

“Don’t wanna have blue hair.”

“No,” Castiel agreed. Someone outside was setting off fireworks. Dean could see where the multicolored lights came in parallel lines through the slatted blinds, and he tried not to flinch every time one exploded. “That would clash terribly with your eyes, I think.” 

He didn’t think he quite managed it.

“Sex,” Dean said drowsily.

“Is that an offer?”

“A coper. Mercantilism.”

Stoner laugh.

“A coping mechanism.”

Yeah. The arm was still on his elbow.

Dean fell asleep.

When he woke up, the numbers on the clock were literally in the process of flipping from 11:59 to midnight, and the light from the moon outside filtered through a wreath of smoke above his head peacefully. There were no more fireworks.

When he turned around, painstakingly shifting from his side to his back with one and a quarter legs, Castiel was still there, his face lit by the glowing tip of a cigarette. Dean knew it was just a cigarette, because the skunky smell was gone, and Castiel was clear-eyed and sad in the white moonlight. Down the hall, there was the sound of muffled celebration, little pop of a champagne bottles like the distant pop of an assault rifle.

“Happy New Year,” Castiel said. He held out the cigarette for Dean, and Dean grabbed it, laid back on the pillow of the bed that wasn’t his, and took a long, thorough drag. The only evidence That Castiel had even moved since Dean had nodded off was the fact that there was a disassembled smoke detector on the dresser at the foot of the bed.

“Happy New Year,” Dean said. He handed the cigarette back to Castiel.

“Does this count as a kiss?” Castiel said. He didn’t hesitate to put his lips where Dean had just put his, eyeing Dean meaningfully over the cigarette’s glowing tip.

“Sure. I guess,” Dean said. “If people who kiss at midnight on the New Year are meant to be happy with one another throughout it, maybe people who swap saliva with a cigarette are bound to have something together too.”

 “Maybe its raunchy sex,” Castiel suggested, but he didn’t move to act on it, and neither did Dean. Both of them just sat lazy against the headboard and watched the clock turn over to 12:01, 12:02, 12:03. The new year feeling just as unsettling as the last, so far.

Somewhere beneath him, the toes he didn’t have anymore were curling, the calf he didn’t have anymore was twinging. He’d slept in his prosthetic and his pressure sock, which was always a bad idea, the whole leg was slipping off his flung out thigh. He didn’t know how he was going to get out of here like this. Sammy was probably going to have to help him out a bed that wasn’t even his, away from a guy he didn’t even have sex with, smelling overpoweringly of marijuana. He tried to work up the energy to care. He didn't. It was just something else that Sam was going to be able to say he _helped him through_ one day.

“Maybe it means we’ll be a little less depressed with each other this year,” Dean said, smacking his lips, trying to figure out another way to make the tingle in both sets of his toes go away. Castiel looked doubtful.

“Or maybe it means, at the very least, that we’ll be getting breakfast together. Or lunch. Or dinner. As an apology.”

Dean smiled, took the cigarette off him for another long inhale, and wondered what he needed an apology for. Castiel took it back for the last drag, a big, long one that he pulled in all at once and blew out in one smooth, steady stream, like dense liquid—a shotgun straight at Dean’s lips that Dean inhaled in turn, deep an hungry. He stubbed out the cigarette not long after, but the smoke continued to swirl above them in dark, pretty patterns in shafts of moonlight that fascinated Dean too much for him to not be at least a little bit stoned still. They both breathed it in and out, toxic little streams and eddies that dissipated slow and left marks in their open lungs.

 “Sure,” he said, watching the smoke clear out, looking at the dismembered pieces of the sad fire alarm that matched its twins in the other room. Feeling the electric scream of nerves in a limb that he didn’t even have. Thinking about the pile of party poppers that he never would be able to stomach—Sam, the absolute ass, was completely right. “It’s a date.”


End file.
